Lauren RabainoSuzie Matzenauer may not want to finish with love on the tennis court, but she has nothing but love for Cal Poly after transferring from Northwestern before this season.
The Tacoma, Wash. native, whose parents were both ranked tennis players in the Czech Republic, developed a love for the sport at age 7.
“I was around courts my whole life,” Matzenauer said.
Cal Poly women’s tennis head coach Hugh Bream began recruiting her after taking notice of her USTA top-20 junior ranking and stellar career at Bellarmine Prep, which won four consecutive state titles while she was there.
But she chose Northwestern, where she went 62-12 in singles play, including a 15-0 mark in the Big Ten Conference, and had the opportunity to play for a team that was ranked No. 1 in the country for much of last year before finishing second.
“That was a really cool feeling to be on a team like that,” Matzenauer said.
Even with all the success, though, she still made the decision to move closer to home.
“I wasn’t very happy at Northwestern,” said Matzenauer, a 20-year-old junior. “It was a really hard process. I told my coach late in the year that I wanted to transfer and it was really stressful for everyone. In the end it worked out well for me, and for Northwestern and for Cal Poly.”
She was encouraged by Amy Markhoff and Brian McPhee – both Washington natives now playing at Cal Poly.
“I came to SLO and visited and I just fell in love,” Matzenauer said.
Markhoff was even a high school teammate of hers.
“I was really excited because she was one of my friends from back home,” Markhoff said. “I knew she would fit right in with our team and help us become a better team, also.”
California was quite a change from Illinois.
“The weather is so much nicer,” Matzenauer said. “We get to practice outdoors here, which is pretty awesome.”
Matzenauer wasn’t worried about her new surroundings affecting her game.
“Our Cal Poly team works harder than the No. 2 team at Northwestern,” she said.
The Mustangs will close their fall schedule by hosting UC Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Santa Clara at the three-day, round-robin Cal Poly Invitational, which begins at 10 a.m. Friday at the Cal Poly Tennis Courts.
In the spring, Cal Poly lost 4-3 three times over one stretch of six contests, and finished 12-12 overall.
“At the end of the season, we looked at six really close matches that we had lost and some of them we had even had match point for,” Bream said. “If we had won four of those, we would have been in the top 40 nationally, playing in the NCAA Tournament.”
This year’s Mustangs returned everyone from a year ago.
Bream challenged the returners to come back 10-percent better by the start of the season.
“Everybody has improved,” he said. “Everybody has found a way to get that 10 percent or more. I think all the players realize we are a much better team than we were a year ago. I really feel that this is the hardest-working group in the nine years that I have been here.”
One of the reasons Matzenauer was so excited about Cal Poly was its coaching staff of Bream and assistant Paige Esparza.
“I heard such good things,” she said. “They’re both just trying to help me change my game, make it better, play more aggressively and then just keep working on my strengths and improving my weaknesses.”
Bream, in his ninth year of coaching the Mustangs, was happy to have her.
“She loves to play aggressively, big-game, loves to rip the forehand,” he said. “And she is extremely competitive.”
That competitive spirit has only added to a squad on the rise, one that sent the doubles tandem of Brittany Blalock and Steffi Wong to the NCAA Tournament a year ago when they were just sophomores.
“Suzie is coming in as a really strong tennis player with a real dominant presence on the court, and overall the whole team has picked up its level,” Blalock said. “She just brings great energy and almost a new freshness to the team.”